Katamari Creator Joins Journey Developers’ New Company

Keita Takahashi, creator of the one and only Katamari Damacy, has joined ranks with Funomea, a new indie comprised of former thatgamecompany employees. Company founder Robin Hunicke and Martin Middleton were part of the team responsible for Journey.

Takahashi announced at Horizon, an indie gaming conference running concurrently with E3, that the idea for his newest game comes from playing with his two-year old and the crazy thought of his building blocks coming to life.

Those unfamiliar with Keita Takahashi’s work would do well to track down his games. His most popular title, Katamari Damacy, is an excellent dose of Japanese craziness, and its sequel, We Love Katamari, is just as fun if not better. While the Katamari series would eventually get bogged down in too many sequels, Takahashi moved on to another “game” called Noby Noby Boy.

Both Katamari Damacy and Noby Noby Boy are available through the PlayStation Network for relatively cheap. Between both of these games and the desire to design a game based off blocks coming to life, it’s easy to see why Takahashi’s dream in life is to design a playground for children.

Of course, Journey is amazing too, so I can’t wait to see what these collective minds can come up with. And with concept art like the stuff above, whoa.

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Ron has been living it up in Japan for the last decade, and he has no intention of leaving this technical wonderland any time soon. When he's not...Ron has been living it up in Japan for the last decade, and he has no intention of leaving this technical wonderland any time soon. When he's not...